id absurdities. Accustomed to subordination during his
bureaucratic life, he respected all social superiority. He was therefore
silent before Minard. During the critical period of retirement from
office, he had held his own admirably, for the following reason. Never
until now had that worthy and excellent man been able to indulge his
own tastes. He loved the city of Paris; he was interested in its
embellishment, in the laying out of its streets; he was capable of
standing for hours to watch the demolition of houses. He might now
have been observed, stolidly planted on his legs, his nose in the air,
watching for the fall of a stone which some mason was loosening at the
top of a wall, and never moving till the stone fell; when it had fallen
he went away as happy as an academician at the fall of a romantic drama.
Veritable supernumeraries of the social comedy, Phellion, Laudigeois,
and their kind, fulfilled the functions of the antique chorus. They wept
when weeping was in order, laughed when they should laugh, and sang in
parts the public joys and sorrows; they triumphed in their corner with
the triumphs of Algiers, of Constantine, of Lisbon, of Sainte-Jean
d'Ulloa; they deplored the death of Napoleon and the fatal catastrophes
of the Saint-Merri and the rue Transnonnain, grieving over celebrated
men who were utterly unknown to them. Phellion alone presents a double
side: he divides himself conscientiously between the reasons of the
opposition and those of the government. When fighting went on in
the streets, Phellion had the courage to declare himself before his
neighbors; he went to the Place Saint-Michel, the place where his
battalion assembled; he felt for the government and did his duty. Before
and during the riot, he supported the dynasty, the product of July; but,
as soon as the political trials began, he stood by the accused. This
innocent "weather-cockism" prevails in his political opinions; he
produces, in reply to all arguments, the "colossus of the North."
England is, to his thinking, as to that of the old "Constitutionnel,"
a crone with two faces,--Machiavellian Albion, and the model nation:
Machiavellian, when the interests of France and of Napoleon are
concerned; the model nation when the faults of the government are in
question. He admits, with his chosen paper, the democratic element,
but refuses in conversation all compact with the republican spirit. The
republican spirit to him means 1793, rioting, the Te